Denna studie syftar till att förstå chefers relationer till sina medarbetare och hur de konstruerar en offentlig och privat sfär. Studien vill med hjälp av chefers egna upplevelser förstå hur cheferna balanserar närhet och distans i sina relationer till medarbetarna. En kvalitativ ansats har valts och fem chefer inom den offentliga sektorn har intervjuats om sina upplevelser av att skapa relationer till medarbetare. Det empiriska materialet har analyserats med hjälp av Goffmans dramaturgiska teori och Scheffs teori om sociala band. Resultatet av studien redovisar olika tillvägagångssätt en chef har för att konstruera en offentlig och privat sfär. Den offentliga sfären omfattar allt framträdande chefen gör inför sina medarbetare, oavsett om det är i hemmet eller på arbetsplatsen. Inför medarbetarna agerar cheferna alltid i rollen som chef och skapar på så sätt förtroende och trovärdighet i sin roll. Närhet till medarbetare upprätthålls genom vardaglig kommunikation och ett visst umgänge på arbetsplatsen. Distans upprätthålls genom att inte bli med vän med sina medarbetare eller dela med sig av sina innersta känslor. Den privata sfären innebär således ett mentalt inre rum dit cheferna inte släpper in sina medarbetare.

Background: Prenatal alcohol exposure causes behavioural, growth and central nervous system deficits in the offspring, termed Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Our lab has previously shown that structured saccadic eye movement tasks probe executive functioning and can be used to measure cognitive dysfunction in children with an FASD, because performance of these tasks reflects the structural integrity of brain areas shown to be vulnerable to prenatal alcohol exposure. Recently developed portable electroencephalographic (EEG) devices record brain activity using a single dry-sensor electrode. Our objectives were: 1) to assess attention and working memory via a delayed memory-guided saccadic eye movement task of varying mnemonic load and 2) to explore the use of a portable single-channel EEG recording device in measuring differences in frontal lobe activity in children with FASD during the performance of this eye movement task. Methods: A total of 18 children with an FASD diagnosis and 19 typically developing control children performed a memory-guided saccadic eye movement task with one, two or three target stimuli. During the task, frontal lobe EEG was recorded using the Neurosky Mindwave Mobile® portable recording device. Results: In the delayed, memory-guided task when two or three target stimuli were required to be held in working memory, children with an FASD performed the task correctly less often than children in the control group. During task performance, children with FASD exhibited a reduction in theta frequency band power, and in alpha frequency band power only at higher mnemonic loads, suggesting that children with FASD recruited more cognitive resources to complete the task. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that a portable EEG recording device can be used to assist in the recognition of underlying neural mechanisms of executive functioning deficits in children with FASD. Portable devices offer greater user comfort than typical EEG recording equipment as well as flexibility for use outside the laboratory. This could greatly facilitate the study of children with FASD, and other groups who may be less tolerant of typical laboratory environments. / Thesis (Master, Neuroscience Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-08-14 20:22:10.995

Das Musizieren in Bands stellt eine zentrale Musizierpraxis innerhalb der Populären Musik dar. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es daher die Bedeutung dieser besonderen Ensembleform für den Musikunterricht zu untersuchen. Im ersten Teil wird die musikpädagogische Auseinandersetzung mit populären Musikpraxen rückblickend und überblicksartig skizziert. Daraufhin soll das Spezifische der Praxis des Bandspiels im zweiten Teil untersucht werden, sodass für eine authentische unterrichtliche Umsetzung wesentliche Merkmale erkennbar werden. Der vermeindliche Spagat aus informellem und formellem Lernen, der sich aus der Thematik ergibt, soll mit Hilfe von pädagogischen Problemfeldern ins Zentrum gerückt werden. Abschließend stehen zwei konkrete Bandpraxiskonzepte, welche nach den gefundenen Kriterien für das Spielen in Bands untersucht werden, im Mittelpunkt der Betrachtung. / Music – making in bands represents a major musical practice within popular music. The objective of this work is to explore the relevance of this particular form of ensemble playing for music teaching in general. In the first part the music pedagogical discussion about popular music practics will be summarised and outlined in a retrospective way. The second part analyses the specific of band practics, so that important characteristics for an educational realization can be recognised. The balancing act between informal an formal learning, that this topic contains, will be discussed within a few pedagogical fields. The last part looks into two concepts of band practics, which will be checked for the found criteria of playing in bands.

Nanotechnology is providing a new set of tools to the engineering community to design nanoscale components with unprecedented functionalities. The integration of several nano-components into a single entity will enable the development of advanced nanomachines. Nanonetworks, i.e., networks of nanomachines, will enable a plethora of applications in the biomedical, environmental, industrial and military fields. To date, it is still not clear how nanomachines will communicate. The miniaturization of a classical antenna to meet the size requirements of nanomachines would impose the use of very high radiation frequencies. The available transmission bandwidth increases with the antenna resonant frequency, but so does the propagation loss. Due to the expectedly very limited power of nanomachines, the feasibility of nanonetworks would be compromised if this approach were followed. Therefore, a new wireless technology is needed to enable this paradigm. The objective of this thesis is to establish the foundations of graphene-enabled electromagnetic communication in nanonetworks. First, novel graphene-based plasmonic nano-antennas are proposed, modeled and analyzed. The obtained results point to the Terahertz Band (0.1-10 THz) as the frequency range of operation of novel nano-antennas. For this, the second contribution in this thesis is the development of a novel channel model for Terahertz Band communication. In addition, the channel capacity of the Terahertz Band is numerically investigated to highlight the potential of this still-unregulated frequency band. Third, a novel modulation based on the transmission of femtosecond-long pulses is proposed and its performance is analyzed.% in terms of achievable information rates. Fourth, the use of low-weight codes to prevent channel errors in nanonetworks is proposed and investigated. Fifth, a novel symbol detection scheme at the receiver is developed to support the proposed modulation scheme. Sixth, a new energy model for self-powered nanomachines with piezoelectric nano-generators is developed. Moreover, a new Medium Access Control protocol tailored to the Terahertz Band is developed. Finally, a one-to-one nano-link is emulated to validate the proposed solutions.

This thesis discusses the chemistry and physics of Cu and H2O on ZnO surfaces, based primarily on results from quantum chemical calculations. The underlying context is heterogeneous catalysis, where Cu/ZnO-mixtures are used in the industrial synthesis of methanol and in the water gas shift reaction. Electron transfer between small Cu clusters and ZnO is central to this thesis, as are the design and use of models that can describe realistic and very large-scale ZnO surface structures while still retaining the electronic nature of the system. Method and model enhancements as well as tests and validations constitute a large part of this thesis. The thesis demonstrates that the charges of small Cu clusters, adsorbed on the non-polar ZnO(10-10) surface, depend on whether the Cu clusters contain an even or odd number of atoms, and whether water is present (water can induce electron transfer from Cu to ZnO). On the polar Zn-terminated ZnO(0001) surface, Cu becomes negatively charged, which causes it to attract positively charged subsurface defects and to wet the ZnO(0001) surface at elevated temperatures. When a Cu cluster on a ZnO surface becomes positively charged, this happens because it donates an electron to the ZnO conduction band. Hence, it is necessary to use a method which describes the ZnO band gap correctly, and we show that a hybrid density functional, which includes a fraction of Hartree-Fock exchange, fulfills this requirement. When the ZnO conduction band becomes populated by electrons from Cu, band-filling occurs, which affects the adsorption energy. The band-filling correction is presented as a means to extrapolate the calculated adsorption energy under periodic boundary conditions to the zero coverage (isolated adsorbate, infinite supercell) limit. A part of this thesis concerns the parameterization of the computationally very efficient SCC-DFTB method (density functional based tight binding with self-consistent charges), in a multi-scale modeling approach. Our findings suggest that the SCC-DFTB method satisfactorily describes the interaction between ZnO surfaces and water, as well as the stabilities of different surface reconstructions (such as triangularly and hexagonally shaped pits) at the polar ZnO(0001) and ZnO(000-1) surfaces.

America's obesity ̒epidemic̕, coupled with increasing use of biomedical technologies in healthcare, has helped usher in new technoscientific methods to medically manage the bodies of overweight and obese individuals. Potential patients now have several surgical options to choose from in efforts to lose weight and (potentially) improve health outcomes, including gastric bypass, sleeve gastrectomy, and gastric banding; this research focuses on the gastric band, an implantable and adjustable silicone device designed to restrict the amount of food consumed. This study involves: in-depth interviews with predominantly female gastric banding patients, medical practitioners, bariatric surgeons, and representatives from the two U.S.-based biomedical firms that manufacture the gastric band; a multi-site ethnography examining the patient experience and the clinical encounter; and content analysis of scientific and non-scientific texts. Through this mixed methodological approach, this study charts the band's evolution and the complex forces guiding its design, development and adoption, and draws attention to the ways in which gendered assumptions enter into the pre- and post-surgical space with repercussions for patient care. Findings suggest that patients̕ decision-making process is shaped by - and shapes - multiple social, political, economic, and regulatory contexts. As a contested and unstable technology, the band's efficacy and ̒foreignness̕ is continually both challenged and reaffirmed by a diverse arena of social actors with a vested interest in the bariatric surgical space. These actors construct the band's role in the obesity epidemic in oppositional ways, affecting its use and perceived misuse: the depiction of the band as a safe, less invasive and - most significantly - removable technology helps drive its use, directing some patients away from other options - specifically, the anatomically changing gastric bypass procedure - portrayed as unnatural and extreme, though simultaneously more effective. While the band's reversibility represents freedom over technology and control over their bodies, it also reflects patients̕ struggle for both autonomy and desire for technological assistance in managing their weight. However, despite patients̕ attempt to assert themselves as active agents, the gastric band emerges as a disciplinary weight loss technology which serves to reinforce the perceived need for clinical intervention in the care and treatment of obesity. This study contributes to our understanding of the possibilities and limitations offered by biomedical technologies, and the ways in which humans resist, comply or are ambivalent toward their adoption and use.

Denna socialpsykologiska studie har som syfte att med en kvalitativ metod nå en ökad förståelse för vilken betydelse samvaron och relationerna på Träffpunkten/Öppen Bas har för besökarnas sociala liv och välmående. Då med uppmärksamheten riktad särskilt mot begrepp som isolering, gemenskap och empowerment. Vi har med en hermeneutisk ansats och genom nio semistrukturerade intervjuer med brukare samt en personal inhämtat vårt empiriska material. För att besvara vår frågeställning har vi analyserat det empiriska materialet med hjälp av J. Asplunds teori om social responsivitet och konkret- och abstrakt socialitet, T. Scheffs sociala band, R. Collins interaktionsritualer samt E. Goffmans teori om stigma. I vår analys diskuterar vi gemenskapens betydelse, vad gemenskapen innehåller, dess positiva konsekvenser, identifikation och stigma samt empowerment och brukarnas plats i dagens samhälle. Resultatet av vår studie visar att Träffpunkten/Öppen Bas i större eller mindre utsträckning fyller en funktion för alla våra respondenter. De individer vi har intervjuat har alla olika bakgrund och social situation, med en funktionsnedsättning som gemensam nämnare. För någon innebär Träffpunkten/öppen Bas ett mål mat, medan andra värdesätter den gemenskap som erbjuds. Träffpunkten/Öppen bas är en samlingsplats som ger brukarna tillfälle att komma hemifrån och delta i en social gemenskap på jämlika villkor, något som hos flera brukare givit positiva utslag även i deras vardag utanför Träffpunkten/Öppen Bas.

The purpose of this study was to compare student and teacher perceptions of classroom management in secondary band rehearsals in Florida schools. Twenty-one schools participated with ensemble teachers (N = 34) and their students (N = 749). Participants were surveyed collecting information for the variables of teacher expectations, teacher behaviors, teacher expectation congruency, teacher behavior congruency, and student rehearsal conduct. Demographic information was also collected for teachers, students, and schools. Descriptive analyses reveal that teachers and students had similar mean scores, however teachers consistently had higher mean scores for teacher expectations and teacher behaviors. MANOVA results suggest that teachers and students have different interpretations of teacher expectations. Regression results found that teacher expectations congruency, teacher gender, and teacher experience level were predictors of student rehearsal conduct. The majority of participating teachers claimed that student misbehavior was not a problem they were consistently addressing. When asked for reasons why they feel students misbehave, the largest response placed fault with the students, followed by performance-related, family-related, and the least accountable was teacher-related.

In Multi-Standard receivers, multiple radios co-exist in close proximity. A desired signal can be accompanied by significantly stronger out-of band interferers or blockers, which can severely degrade a receiver's sensitivity through gain compression of the blocks in the receiver chain. This work presents a new Transimpedance Amplifier (TIA) low-pass filter architecture which seeks to solve the out-of-band blocker problem of the existing architectures. A higher order filtering is embedded within the TIA in the form of an active feedback to provide more attenuation to out-of-band blockers. The active feedback circuitry feeds back an equivalent amount of current to the input node to cancel out incoming out-of-band blockers while maintaining an acceptable voltage swing at the output of the TIA. The proposed TIA filter has a channel bandwidth of 20MHz, and can processes interferers of +/- 10mA fully differential without saturating the opamps. The maximum single ended voltage swing at all the nodes is +/- 200mV. All the circuits were designed in IBM 180nm CMOS process with a supply voltage of 1.8V.

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Music, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.